So did all of us pick the raft trip on the Nantahala as the highlight of our week at NCCAT? I’m sure this is the experience I will remember the best years from now. It was exciting and educational, the scenery was beautiful, it was a bonding experience, and I enjoyed the physical activity. Before the trip I wasn’t sure if I was up to the physical challenge. It has been a long time since I went on a couple of raft trips in Arizona. Those were unguided trips through wilder rapids and I fell out of the raft twice, nearly drowned, and got hypothermia. So it was kind of hard to get up the nerve to sit in the front of the raft while going over Nantahala Falls. But it felt so good to work together as a team with the other folks on my raft and come through the falls successfully. It has been wonderful getting to know the other teachers from Duplin and Jennifer better this way! The scenery was so beautiful. I have missed the mountains since I moved to the Coastal Plain. I especially liked the mist that we rowed through. And it was so great to get outside and move our muscles after suiting for so long the previous day.

I am doing an externship at Vidant Duplin Hospital that will help me teach Biology differently next year.  My mentor, Krista Horne, is awesome. She arranged for me to spend half a day shadowing staff members in the following areas: ICU, OR, Women’s Center, Respiratory, Laboratory, Infection Control, Case Management, Diabetes Education, Nutrition, Dietary, and Quality Control. It has been fascinating and exciting. I plan to do a PBL lesson on diabetes that will incorporate a community education component.. Teams of students will do research on diabetes, write it up, create an educational product, and give an oral presentation.

I hope that doing an externship at Vidant Duplin Hospital will help me to upgrade my Honors Biology course. I want to find ways to make more real-world connections to health and health care and ways to make class more engaging. I plan to find ways my students can give back to the community through community service projects. And I hope the externship enables me to link some of our students with internships, graduation projects, or volunteer opportunities. I hope that I come away from the professional development able to successfully use some of the technology presented in the sessions.